Scope: C8 f/2.8 Location: Del Mar, CA 30 Nov. 2004 Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 9 x 50 sec and 24 x 25 sec and 24 x 9 sec Luminance Exposures with IR Block and Orion SkyGlo filters. 16 x 20 sec RGB Exposures
Processing: Images were captured in K3CCDTools 2. Aligned/stacked in Registax 3 and saved as FITS. Luminance and Color channels were scaled and rough color balanced in Astroart. Channels were co-registered in Astroart. The 25 sec IR was used to minimize some star bloating; the 50 sec IR exposure provided data on dimmer stars for star magnitude depth. Luminance and Color FITS were combined in Photoshop with Luminance Layering. Color balancing and final touches in Photoshop. SGBNR (PixInsight LE) was used to smooth background noise on Luminance channel as well as the final result. Image was resized to 800 x 600.
This image was taken at a light polluted site - so the skyglo filter was used. This was a guided image. M38 is one of several Messier Open Clusters in Auriga and is often compared to its cousin M37 about 6 degrees away. M38 age is estimated slightly younger at 220 million years; its distance is estimated at 4,200 light years. Horizontal FOV is 30'